


Partners In Crime.

by reidbyers



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reidbyers/pseuds/reidbyers
Summary: Spencer Reid was a good man, ask anyone and they would agree. Maeve Donovan was a good woman, intelligent and a perfect match for Spencer. However the love they shared was perhaps too strong, strong enough to make them both do things they would regret.





	Partners In Crime.

“Sorry I’m late.” Spencer said as he hurried into the conference room, his hair a mess and his tie a little crooked but that wasn’t anything new. The fact that he was late though was, Spencer was almost always the first one into work or at least somewhere in the middle but definitely not the last and never late especially when he’d been told there was a case. The team didn’t think anything too strange of it, everyone was late at least once and they were sure he’d give an explanation if they asked. The only free seat was next to Rossi so Spencer quickly sat down in it, wrestling his bag off before looking down at the case file in front of them. “Male victim, shot execution style in his home late last night, no signs of dna of the unsub at the crime scene. Did the autopsy show signs of anything, drugs of any kind?”

“Thiopental, it’s a general anesthesia used before surgeries. Clearly our unsub did not want Mr Harris to be waking up any time soon.” Penelope explained before she pointed her remote at the TV and pulled up two more crime photos of different victims, both shot in the back of the head with their faces resting against the pillow. They had first been injected while they were sleeping to make sure that in the process of being moved onto the floor they did not wake up, a pillow had then been placed beneath their head before being shot in the back of the head with a Glock G19. To everyone it was perfectly clear that the unsub had a purpose, they weren’t killing for the fun of it. If they were then there would have been signs, the victim would have been toyed with or tortured in some kind of way but no, he was murdered in what was probably the most humane way you could murder someone.

“So it’s not the first time he’s done this.” JJ said as she flipped through the photos that came along with the file, the photos were reasonably tame to other things she had seen so they were pretty easy to look at. She also didn’t relate in anyway to the victims, they were all middle aged men who restraining orders from younger women and had a history of stalking. The working theory they had was this unsub was targeting men with these histories because they either had been stalked in the past or knew someone who was and was trying to get their rage out. Victimology was clear, they lived similar lives as single men with disturbing pasts and it made sense why those three men in particular had been targeting. It didn’t feel like the most difficult case they’d ever worked on, hopefully they just needed to look for victims of stalkers in the nearby area and try and find a relation to the three victims while also warning any potential victims. 

“Why’d you say he? Could be a female.” It made more sense to Emily that it would be a woman carrying out these crimes considering they were most often the victims of stalker cases. If they felt like their case hadn’t been taken seriously then perhaps they would decide to take the law into their own handles and take out any of the potential stalkers around them. If this was a man seeking revenge for a loved one then it was likely the kills would be filled with more rage and there was none of that present. JJ nodded but was quickly interrupted by Morgan who wasn’t so convinced.

“She’d have to be strong enough to pull these men each around 180 pounds out of bed and manage to position them on the floor without breaking anything around them and also not leaving any DNA evidence behind. I don’t see it.” Morgan explained, gesturing down to the crime scene photo. He did have a point, it would be difficult for a woman unless she was extremely strong to be able to move the subdued victim across the room without leaving any evidence she was there. The motive made more sense though with a female victim, that meant one thing though.

“We could be looking at two unsubs.” Hotch put the pieces together for the rest of the team, allowing everyone’s own thoughts to he heard and contemplated on. A vigilante couple working together to get rid of stalkers because of what could only be assumed as to be a past trauma? It was textbook and hopefully not a difficult case to solve, with Penelope’s techy skills it would be easy to drag down a list of people with restraining orders in the area, news spread quickly so even if there were rumours about potential stalkers if some of the team were sent out and talked around eventually someone would confess something.

Spencer had been in his head the entirety of the time the team were discussing who the unsub could be, this whole case was one he knew would find their way to the round table eventually but he hadn’t been prepared for it to be this soon. Three victims, that made it serial by definition and he sat there quietly biting his tongue acting as if he didn’t have the slightest clue who was behind these crimes when he knew more than anyone did. He could easily be charged with failure to report a crime but with the things he knew, that would probably be the lesser of two evils.

“Reid? Did you hear any of that?” Spencer’s head shot up at the sound of his own name, when he lifted his head up he was met with the rest of the team looking at him expectantly. It wasn’t like him to not give his thoughts about things, usually he had something important to add or at least something he thought was important but today he was quietly sat there, not even listening. He cleared his throat and sat up straighter, hoping he could talk his way out of this one and act like himself even though he didn’t feel all that much like it.

“Sorry, I’m stuck in my head a bit today. What were you saying?” Spencer turned to face Morgan when he heard him chuckling, frowning over at his friend as he tried to work out what was so funny about what he had just said. Morgan just put his hands up in defence and leant back in his chair, the rest of the team now curious to know what had got him so amused.

“I see, had a freaky night with Maeve?” At the mention of his girlfriend Spencer grew red in the face, especially in the context she was being spoken in. He very much kept his relationship separate from his job, it was rare he mentioned her apart from the time he had been hounded over and over to confess whether or not he had a girlfriend. The team for the most part respected his privacy, Penelope had done a little research into Maeve just because she wanted to make sure she was a good person and the kind of person they wanted Spencer to be with and thankfully she was met with only a list of positives. Sure, some wished considering they were so open about their relationships that Spencer would feel comfortable enough around them to talk about her but they could survive without it.

Spencer didn’t reply to Morgan’s comment, instead he just ducked his head down at the file and let everyone think that he was correct in thinking that they’d had a wild night. It was better than confessing what had really happened, if they wanted to think they’d had sex and that was what was on Spencer’s mind then sure, he was okay with them thinking that because it was a cover up like he had been looking for. Even though he didn’t like Morgan even picturing Maeve in a situation like that he knew it wasn’t meant in any offensive way, it was just his way of teasing Spencer but he was so damn protective over now the mere mention of her name from someone’s mouth got his heart racing.

The rest of the day went by like a blur, he and Morgan were sent out to go speak to locals around where the killings took place and to see if anyone had heard any rumours about any stalkers, if they knew of any connections to the victims, the usual sort of things you asked the public but of course, no one knew anything. Penelope managed to create a list of people with restraining orders but none of them matched the profile, no family members or spouses with violent tendencies, still they would be good to talk to and Emily and JJ begun the long adventure of going out and speaking with said people. It was just a lot of talking to people and getting nowhere, these were the worst kinds of days but for once Spencer was glad.

Spencer had never been more eager to get back to his apartment than he had been that day, he still had to act normal though and if he raced off then people might get suspicious so he wandered across to the elevators with JJ and Rossi and tried to keep up with their conversation, hoping that they took him being slightly off as him just being excited to go home or something like that. It would be accurate, he was excited to get home and see Maeve just maybe not for the reasons everyone else was thinking.

He had never quite loved someone like he loved Maeve, he loved his mother and he loved his friends but there was something about her that he was just encompassed by. They understood one another, not for a single second had he felt out of place or alienated by her which like it or not was something his team failed not to do sometimes, all Spencer ever wanted was to feel special and apart of something and with Maeve he felt that. He wasn’t one to believe in true love and all that stuff as when it came down to it love was just a variation of chemicals flooding the brain but for her, he could believe in it.

For a few weeks now Maeve had been off work sick, Spencer of course had not told his team this and Maeve had not been one hundred percent honest with her work about why she could not come in. It wasn’t as if she was just trying to get away from her job because she loved it and frankly wanted nothing more than to get back there but there were forces in her life preventing it, forces she was trying to get rid of but so far to no prevail. She was at home at his apartment every day and night, the only time she left was when she was with him and it wasn’t for the most innocent of reasons.

Ever since Spencer had first met Maeve she had told him that she was worried she might have a stalker, it hadn’t affected their relationship greatly because nothing major had happened and it had remained just a small worry in the back of her head but after a few weeks of them dating things started to kick off. She would get phone calls from unknown numbers where the caller would just breath down the line, random gifts left at her apartment, classic stalker signs and while Spencer wanted to go to his team about this and get their help Maeve refused. She didn’t want to get more people involved, she didn’t even want Spencer involved but he was not about to let her deal with this whole thing alone. They hadn’t been dating that long but he was already willing to do so much for her, it was almost scary.

Spencer knew she was a good person, she was kind and thoughtful and intelligent beyond belief and he loved her. He wouldn’t have done the things he had done if he didn’t, his whole life he’d been trying to find someone who would love him and give back the same immense amount of love he had within him and he’d found that with her. It came at a price though, nothing was perfect and everything he believed in and stood for came into question at the expense of keeping her safe.

On the way up to his apartment he could hear music softly drifting from behind the closed door, a Fanny Mendelssohn piece with dramatic piano acting as the perfect company for the hours Maeve spent alone. She had all the books in the world to choose from though, or at least it felt like it. All those stories and facts, endless worlds to explore while drifting around Spencer’s apartment, the cold wood against her toes bringing her back to earth. After the night she’d had before she liked disappearing into her mind for a while, not necessarily dancing around the rooms of his apartment but instead taking short round steps as if she was doing some kind of waltz, a book in her hands as she distracted herself from everything that had happened.

The fumbling of keys in the lock brought her out of her daydream and she paused, head turning to look at the door and stood frozen until it was opened and received Spencer, she then let out a soft sigh of all the breath she had been holding before starting to twirl again. Her attention went back to her book as Spencer closed the door behind him and started to strip out of his coat and scarf, placing his shoes and bag at the door before walking over to Maeve, he didn’t tell her to stop but instead waited until she turned in his direction and paused by her own accord.

“You’ve taken the case, haven’t you?” The sound of Maeve’s voice made him almost crumble, every day he wondered if this would be the last time he got to hear it before someone worked out all the horrible things they had done. Spencer had spent eight years putting bad guys away and he knew many of them had lovers, spouses of years and years but he’d never wondered if those killers and those rapists sat alone in their cell and missed their partners. Maybe it was because he didn’t want to spend any more time on them as individuals once they’d been but away unless it was for studying purposes or maybe all along, he’d been preparing himself in some degree.

A hole too big had been dug now, he was so willing to protect Maeve from any potential harm that he had become the very thing he’d spent so much time and effort trying to stop. She had a stalker and part of him knew that if this person heard that other stalkers were getting murdered in the area then it might cause them to stop. Another part, a bigger one knew that the psychology of someone with stalking tendencies would perhaps be so infatuated that they could not just leave her alone even if they knew they were in danger. But what else was there to do now? She had been so scared and at the time Spencer’s head had been so clouded that the decision had been made for him without any proper time to assess.

There was no way he could say these kills were defensive, he knew all too well how the law worked and he knew exactly what he and Maeve were doing when they got that gun and that drug. Because he was so smart and his speciality was in profiling he knew the perfect way to get around things, knew how to get a gun that couldn’t be traced and how to get the Thiopental without anyone knowing where it had come from. Deep down he knew that the only way the team were going to be able to find out who committed those crimes was if he messed up and let something slip, there was no way they were going to be able to find either his or Maeve’s name in connection to these crimes and they didn’t know about her stalker so that would be off the table as well. His safety and now her freedom was in his hands and that alone made him determined to keep a straight face and act as normal.

Maeve had been there at the crime scenes, she refused to let Spencer go through any of this alone and while she didn’t lug these men out of bed or shoot them in the back of the skull she insisted on being the one to inject them. Spencer trusted her enough to do it correctly and not leave any DNA evidence of herself but he would much rather have been the only one there, just so she was as safe as she possibly could be. No matter what though if they got caught out she was going down as well, failure to report a crime and all that.

“They’re not going to find anything.” Spencer replied softly, looking down at Maeve and the look of nervousness of her face. She was exhausted, kept waking up from nightmares in the middle of the night, seeing dead men’s faces because she wasn’t prepared for this. She didn’t want to be a killer, she want to do this but other parts of her knew it had the chance to help and she couldn’t imagine the pain Spencer would go through if one day her stalker got her and broke them apart. The only reason she was doing this was for Spencer, she loved him too much to let herself get hurt and if this was the twisted way to do that then that was the price she would pay. 

While Spencer did sound convinced, Maeve knew he was still terrified. He was a good man, she knew that and everyone else around him knew that and while this did blur the moral code he had she still believed he was good. Being a good person isn’t black and white, humans decided what was good and bad a long time ago and it’s always developing so some could argue that they don’t actually exist. Everything is a muddy mixture of them both and for some reason, it made Spencer feel better. He couldn’t have conversations like that with anyone but Maeve, she understood him and knew exactly what to say to make him feel better and in turn he did the same for her.

Spencer watched as Maeve slowly put the book she had been reading down and instead extended her hand out for Spencer, he didn’t hesitate to lay his much larger hand in her petite palm before her fingers wrapped around him. He took a step closer and rested his head into the crook of her shoulder, his safe place, the one place he could believe even for the shortest amount of time they were good people deserving of good things. The record playing the classical piece scratched as it finished playing, pausing for a few seconds before begining with another song, one that was much slower and far more calm.

They stood slow dancing in each others arms until they both didn’t feel so bad, the guilt there of course and forever would be but they had each other. Neither was prepared to let that change so they danced, they danced until the sun went down and the cool night breeze began to blow through through the curtains. And still, they danced.


End file.
